Kingdoms of Amalur Online Pass is 'Day One DLC'

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Studio founder defends online pass.

By Andrew Goldfarb

38 Studios boss Curt Schilling has defended Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's online pass. The pass will unlock the House of Valor faction quest for customers who purchase a new copy of the game, while those with used copies will need to buy the quest separately. While the pass has drawn criticism for blocking single-player content, Schilling has spoken out, defending the decision to include it.

In a post on Amalur's official forums, Schilling writes that the content is simply day-one downloadable content designed to reward early adopters of the game.

"DAY 1 DLC, to be extremely and VIVIDLY clear, is FREE, 100% totally FREE, to anyone that buys a new copy of Reckoning, ANYONE," Schilling wrote. "If you don't buy new games you buy them used, and in that case you will have to pay for the Day 1 free DLC content the new copy buyers got for free. It's clear the intent right? To promote early adopters and MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO ME, REWARD fans and gamers who commit to us with their time and money when it benefits the company."

Schilling went on to say that making a profit is the only way future games can be developed, and that methods like an online pass are one way to make that happen.

"That's just how business works. We MUST make a profit to become what we want to become," Schilling wrote. "THE ONLY way we do that is to make games you CANNOT WAIT TO BUY! If we do that, and you do that, we want to reward you with some cool free stuff as a thank you. You can TOTALLY disagree with this and I am sure many do, so we'll agree to disagree. This is not 38 trying to take more of your money, or EA in this case, this is us REWARDING people for HELPING US! If you disagree due to methodology, ok, but that is our intent."